of his wretched followers now
darted forward to attack the coffin. Round and round they turned it;
one arm was seized, then another, and we saw the body dragged down with
a dozen sharks surrounding it, tearing it limb from limb!

Our captain very quickly recovered himself, and passing his hand over
his brow, as if to shut out some dreadful vision, ordered us in a calm
tone to pull towards the approaching brig. As we pulled from the spot,
the water appeared here and there tinged with a crimson tint; but
scarcely a vestige of the unfortunate little schooner remained. The
brig approached.

"She is the _Rainbow_, sir; there can be no doubt of it!" exclaimed
Peter, who had been eyeing her narrowly over his right shoulder.

He was right. On her people seeing a boat she was hove-to, and we were
very quickly on board. I need not describe the surprise of Mr Jones,
the first mate, who had now command of her as captain, or of the officer
who had been shipped instead of Mr Gale. Of course, we had all long
been given over as lost.

Mr Jones very willingly gave up his command to Captain Helfrich, and
re-occupied his post as first mate; but the new officer who had been
shipped, in a most foolish way nourished a peculiar dislike not only for
Mr Gale for superseding him, but towards all of us, and took every
opportunity of showing it. The vessel had got a full cargo in, and was
on her way back to Dublin. At first, however, he pretended that he
wished to be very kind to me, in consequence of the hardships I had gone
through, and the narrow escape I had of death from the Maroons. Of
course, there was no reason for keeping that part of our adventures
secret, so I gave him a full account of all that had occurred; but then
he led me on to describe the hurricane, and our capture by the pirates;
and from the interest he took in the questions he asked me, I felt that
he had some sinister motive for his inquiries. This made me hold my
tongue for the time; and when I told Peter all the mate had asked me, he
told me that I was perfectly right not to give him any further
information, as he was sure that he would make a bad use of it. We
neither of us liked the expression of the man's countenance, or his
manner to his superiors, or us his inferiors. Time was to show us that
we were right in our conjectures.

When the extra mate found that he could get nothing out of Peter or me
he attacked the other men; and from what they confessed